Soon, the cost to the telco for 10 gigabits will be little different than the cost of ten megabits. 1 gig service over fiber costs the carrier very little more than 10 or 100 megabits. Equipment going in today is almost all ready for a gig. There's rarely any savings using obsolete gear that tops out at lower speeds. PCCW's Hong Kong telco has now upped the ante, bringing a ten gig - presumably XGPON - to all 800,000 fiber customers. Trials have begun and they expect to cover nearly all 800K by the end of 2015.

Hong Kong consumers are among the luckiest in the world. Despite wages often as high as the U.S., prices both for wired and wireless service are typically half what they are in the states. Pricing for the gig service isn't announced and will be determined by what the market requires. Even with the low revenue base, HKT is going fiber or vectored VDSL to nearly all the city while investing less than 10% of revenue. Their LTE is going to 300 megabits.

Hong Kong HKT's cost should be somewhere between $400 & $1,000 per home - probably closer to $400.